LOVE'S BEGGAR.
A threat from Count Simon of Sagan was not to be lightly regarded at any
time, but within the boundaries of his own estates it appreciably
discounted the chances of life. Therefore Rallywood, instead of
returning to the Castle, headed for the block-house by the Ford. The
incident which had just taken place probably meant the closing of his
career in the army of Maäsau. Personal power survived in its full
plenitude in the little state, which had never made any pretence of
setting up a representative government; the Maäsaun people were as mute
as they had been in the dark ages and appeared content to remain so.
The future which lay before Rallywood on that winter evening was not
enlivening. Less than three months ago he would have been half amused at
such a conclusion to his military life as offering an answer to a
perplexed question. But since then much had happened. That ill-luck
should overtake him when hope was at its keenest, and when his relations
both with the Guard and the Duke had reached a promising point, struck
him hard. If he left the Guard he must also leave Maäsau. He had told
himself a hundred times that the daughter of the Chancellor was far
beyond his winning, yet the certainty of losing her, which this last
development of events involved, was the worst blow of all. To stare an
empty future in the face is like looking into expressionless eyes where
no soul can ever come.
He little guessed how close upon him were the critical moments of life,
or how much of emotion and difficulty and strenuous decision were to be
crowded into the next few days. A whirlpool of events was drawing him to
its raging centre. The death and the burial of Colendorp, Sagan's
resentment and his ruthless scheming were all eddies of circumstance
circling inward and carrying him with them to a definite issue.
As he rode on the weather grew rapidly worse, and it soon became
impossible to see more than a few yards ahead. The night was settling
down thick with falling snow, so that Rallywood could only pull up and
listen when a faint noise, that might have been a woman's scream, came
to him through the storm. He shouted in return but there was no answer.
Then out of the gray curtain a sleigh with two maddened horses dashed
across his path and was as suddenly lost to sight. Rallywood had only
time to see a woman clinging to the driver's empty seat and clutching
desperately at the dangling reins.
They passed like a vision, noiseless, swift, and dim, and although
Rallywood followed quickly, he could not find them. The gloom and the
snow had obliterated all trace of the sleigh, and at last Rallywood
himself, well as he knew the country, became bewildered; but luckily the
horse he rode was a charger he had had with him on the Frontier. He left
it to choose its own direction, yet it was long before a blur of light
which he knew to be the open doorway of the block-house grew out on the
shifting darkness.
Within, the men of the patrol were standing in a group talking eagerly.
Flinging himself from his horse, Rallywood entered the house just as a
young cavalry officer came out from the inner room, and, recognising
Rallywood, advanced hurriedly to meet him.
'I say, who do you think we have in there?' he said excitedly.
'Tell me afterwards,' interrupted Rallywood; 'I met a runaway
sleigh----'
'They were the horses from the Castle,' interrupted the young man with a
nervous laugh. 'Mademoiselle Selpdorf managed to get hold of the reins
after a bit, otherwise----' he snapped his fingers significantly.
'Then she--the lady is safe?'
'Two of them, my dear friend! One is the handsomest girl in Maäsau, and
the other is Madame de Sagan herself! And, by Jove! she's an infernally
pretty woman too. We're in luck, Rallywood! Have you come to look for
them?'
Rallywood hesitated before he replied.
'No, thanks. I must get back to Révonde by the first train, so I will
ride on with the next patrol to the station. Are they hurt?' he nodded
towards the inner room.
'No, but how they escaped the deuce only knows! Madame de Sagan was
insensible when we found them.' He dropped his voice. 'By the way, she
has been saying some queer things! She declares the driver lashed up the
horses and purposely threw himself off the sleigh when they were on the
slope of the pine wood just above the Ingern precipice. She swears he
meant to kill them!'
'She was frightened. That's all.'
'It was about a certainty they'd be dashed to pieces. And look here----'
the young fellow looked oddly at Rallywood, 'she hinted that the
Count----'
'Nonsense!' Rallywood forced a laugh. 'She was badly frightened, I tell
you.'
'I'll take my oath there's something in it though! She refuses to let us
take her back to the Castle to-night.'
'What have you given them--tea or anything?'
'Faith, no! I made them each take a nip of _bizutte_--far better, too.
But we'll have some tea made now if you think they would like it.'
'Of course. It will give them something to do. By the way, you might as
well ask them if they would see me.'
On second thought and in view of the Countess's refusal to go back to
Sagan, he felt he must offer his assistance.
'Yes, ask them if they will see me now,' he continued, looking at his
watch; 'I have not much time to spare.'
The next moment Isolde's high sweet voice could be heard distinctly
through the open door.
'Captain Rallywood! Pray tell him we should like to see him.'
Madame de Sagan was lying on a narrow camp bed supported by wraps and
pillows, a brilliant red spot on each cheek, and her eyes darker than
ordinary under the influence of the alternate fright and stimulation of
the last two hours. She waited till the door was shut, then she put out
both hands to Rallywood.
'Thank Heaven, we are safe and together again, Jack! Come here! I want
to know that you are alive and this is not all a dream,' she began
impulsively, yet behind the impulse lay a calculated design. She owed
her life to Valerie's courage, but that weighed as nothing in comparison
with the knowledge that in some indefinite manner the girl stood between
Rallywood and herself, that Rallywood for some reason held Valerie in
special regard.
Rallywood bowed, still standing by the door.
'Thank Heaven you are safe, Madame,' he said. 'I saw you somewhere this
side of the pine woods, but lost you in the mist.'
'Oh, I did not see you! I saw nothing after that murderer leaped off. I
had a horrible instant during which I imagined myself swinging between
the gorge and the sky--after that I knew no more!' exclaimed Isolde, a
sort of complacency mixing with her agitation. 'They tell me that
Valerie was very brave and that she saved our lives, but for me these
heroisms are impossible!'
She glanced at Rallywood, secure in his approval, but he had turned to
Valerie, who was sitting in a low wooden chair by the stove with her
back to the room.
'It was magnificent, Mademoiselle!' he exclaimed.
Valerie shivered.
'There was nothing at all magnificent about it,' she said coldly.
'Self-preservation drives one to do what one can; it is only by chance
that one happens to do the right thing.'
Isolde shrugged her shoulders and made a little grimace at Rallywood.
'Do not heed her, Jack. People are always very pleased with themselves
for doing what other people call magnificent. Valerie is cross. Take
this chair by me; I have a very serious quarrel with you.'
All the terror and peril of that dreadful drive had passed from Madame
de Sagan's facile mind. The little rivalries and coquetries of everyday
life occupied her as fully as if her lot contained no troublous outlook.
In this conjunction vanity will often do for a woman what work does for
a man. As for Isolde, the small promptings of a wounded vanity at once
absorbed her.
Very unwillingly Rallywood obeyed. Between those narrow walls one was
within hand-reach of everything in the room, so that although he was
beside the Countess he was not a yard from Mademoiselle Selpdorf.
'So you would not come to me last night?' began Isolde abruptly. 'You
cannot be made to understand that we Maäsauns hold human life of very
little account. It is stupid of you, Jack, but you will be forced to
believe it now. Do you know that the driver of the sleigh----'
The attempt at assassination was horrible enough in itself, but from her
lips wearing their strange innocent smile he felt he could not endure
the story.
'I have heard of it,' he interposed hastily; 'the Lieutenant told me.
But----'
Isolde leant upon her elbow to look into his face.
'What! You don't believe even now that Simon is trying to rid himself of
me? Valerie, speak! You too refused to believe me last night. What do
you say now?'
'It may have been an accident,' replied Valerie with a tired movement.
'Absurd! But whatever you choose to say, I will not go back to the
Castle! Révonde is perhaps safe----'
'My father is there, and you will be safe,' said Valerie in a tone of
quiet certainty.
Isolde laughed scornfully. 'I don't know that; for after all Sagan is
the most powerful man in the state!' she cried, with that perverse pride
in her husband that his daring personality seemed to develop in all his
dependents.
As Valerie made no reply, she harked back to her former subject. 'I was
in danger last night, Jack, yet you would not come to my help. What
excuse can a man offer for such a thing?' her voice and lips had grown
tender in addressing him.
'The Duke, Madame.'
'That for the old Duke!' with a charming gesture of emptying both her
little hands. 'What is he in comparison with me? Jack, you are but a
poor lover after all!'
Rallywood began to see that some motive underlay Isolde's wild talk. The
kind eyes with which he had been watching her changed.
'It is very true,' he said.
'Jack, Jack, how am I to forgive you?' she swept on. 'Yet you remember
when I was a firefly at the palace ball, I told you that like a firefly
my life would be short and merry. My prophecy is coming true.'
An almost imperceptible alteration in the pose of the quiet figure by
the open stove was not lost upon Madame de Sagan.
The sweet treble voice resumed:
'You took a firefly from my fan and told me that one always wanted the
beautiful things to live for ever. Jack, you promised to be my friend
that night. You have not forgotten?'
'I have not forgotten.'
'And the firefly? Have you kept that as carelessly as you have kept your
promise? Where is your cigarette-case? Ah!' a pause, then a cry of
pleasure. 'Valerie, come here! He dropped it into his cigarette-case and
it is here still! If you had only reminded him of that----'
Valerie stood up cold and proud, and exceedingly pale.
'I forgot.'
'It does not matter now,' Isolde replied, taking the glittering atom
from its hiding-place and holding it up on her slender finger to catch
the light, 'since we have met after all. You meant to fail, Valerie!
Were you not ashamed to deceive me last night--even last night when you
saw I was desperate, and oh, so horribly afraid?'
Rallywood, absorbed in other thoughts, gathered very little of what was
being said. After avoiding Isolde of Sagan with more or less success on
the Frontier, he had, since his stay in Révonde, yielded in an odd
reserved way to her infatuation for him, partly out of a desire to
secure meetings with Mademoiselle Selpdorf, partly from a man's stupid
helplessness under such circumstances. The more chivalrous the man the
more helpless very often. But all this was entirely and for ever
unexplainable to Mademoiselle Selpdorf. He drew a deep breath. There was
nothing for it but to accept the situation.
'We both owe a debt to Mademoiselle Selpdorf for carrying the message,'
he said.
'You are mistaken,' said Valerie, and he winced under the contempt of
her voice. 'I should never have stooped to carry it had I not had a far
different object in view.'
Isolde laughed to a shrill echo. Valerie Selpdorf's haughty spirit was
about to be humbled. She dimly felt why Rallywood held the girl to be
far above the level of ordinary womanhood--a cold and unattainable star.
But she should be dragged down from the heights before his eyes.
'I was not so blind as you supposed,' Isolde said aloud, pointing an
accusing finger at Valerie. 'I knew why you went. Shall I tell you,
Jack?'
Rallywood looked up quickly. Colendorp naturally recurred to his mind.
'You could not have known,' Valerie answered.
'But I did, though!' Isolde went on. 'Listen to me, Jack. Do you know
why she undertook my message, and why she forgot its most important
point? My life has come to-night to a crisis; I will not spare those who
have been cruel to me!' Isolde was trembling with excitement as she
leant forward, one hand holding by the table that stood between her and
Valerie, the other clenched in the soft fur of the rug on her knees.
'Why? Oh, men are so simple! They believe a woman to be pure and true
if she but knows how to temper her coquetries with a pretence of
reserve. Jack, Valerie has been false to me and to you because she is
jealous of me, and--because she herself loves you!'
Rallywood rose slowly. 'Hush, Madame!'
Valerie stood for one instant scarlet from neck to brow, then the blood
ebbed and left her of a curious deadly pallor like one who has a mortal
wound, but she still faced them.
'Wait, Jack. You shall hear the end now that we have gone so far.'
Isolde laughed again. She was so sure of her lover. 'It is well for the
truth to come out sometimes, you know. Yes, Valerie Selpdorf, the proud,
unapproachable Valerie, loves a captain of the Guard, who----'
Rallywood strode across in front of her. After such words of outrage,
his very nearness to Mademoiselle Selpdorf seemed in itself an insult.
With his back to the door he stopped and took up the last unfinished
sentence.
'You have made a strange mistake, Madame,' he said in a low voice but
very clearly. 'On the contrary, it is the captain of the Guard who has
loved Mademoiselle Selpdorf, and even dared to tell her so, although she
had shown him that she regarded him with scorn and dislike. I hope I may
be forgiven for acknowledging this now, Mademoiselle. And let me say one
thing more, that though I have no hope, though I am one of Love's
beggars, the greatest honour of my life will be that I have loved such
a woman!'
The door closed behind him. Isolde sat stupified at the result of her
stratagem, the stratagem by which she had intended to humble Valerie in
the most cruel way a woman can be humbled.
Valerie, sinking down into her chair, burst into an uncontrollable flood
of tears. The secret of her heart, which she had denied to herself,
sprang up at Isolde's words and confronted her, filling her world's
horizon.
'Well,' said Isolde after a long pause, '"We love but while we may." I
wish you joy of his constancy. He loved me yesterday.'
Valerie raised her head with the old haughty gesture.
'As for him, Isolde, you compelled him to say it! But he does not--love
me!' Her voice gathered strength. 'As for me, you shall know the whole
truth; you are right--I love him, for he is a most noble gentleman!'